ANTH330 New Zealand Archaeology

Examination of past and recent research in archaeology of the New Zealand region (North,
South, Stewart, Chathams and Subantarctic Islands), from initial human settlement
until the recent past.

This paper offers students new and stimulating archaeological insights into the origins,
development, identities and interactions of the Māori, Moriori, and later settler
peoples of New Zealand. Case studies range across the New Zealand archipelago, including
the Chatham Islands. The course considers when, where, and how the first Polynesians
and their accompanying plants and animals were transferred from the tropics into the
colder lands of temperate New Zealand as well as the impacts of those new arrivals
on New Zealand's native fauna and flora. We explore the ways in which society, economy,
ideology, patterns of settlement and exchange developed as Polynesians first colonised
the diverse New Zealand islands, from the subtropical far north to the subpolar south.
We then consider the archaeology of the more recent historical past in New Zealand.
We examine changes in Māori culture, society and economy, the emergence of a distinctive
Pākehā culture during the first half of the 19th century, and the post-1860s development
of Kiwi culture that incorporates the gradually transforming traditions of Māori,
Pākehā and other immigrant groups.